Second Chance
by ixieko
Summary: After Hojo had won the "mudslinging feud", Hollander found himself in a predicament. Fortunately, he got another chance...


If there was someone Hollander hated more than he hated Hojo, he still had to meet them.

"Bastard," Hollander thought, exiting his office after an unexpected call from his former rival - now, superior. "Ordering me around as if I was an intern!"  
How he had waited for the times when Professor Faremis finally was out of their way. He had even teamed up with Hojo in order to overthrow the old idealistic fool, had spent months gathering blackmail and plotting, and what had he got as his reward? A tiny, windowless _closet_ as an office, a couple of idiots as assistants, and a firm "No" for his requests to continue the Project G.  
"Failures, both of them," Hojo had called Hollander's boys. "It's pointless to continue working on them when we already have a most promising subject."  
And yes, Hollander knew _whom_ he was talking about. Sephiroth, a strange white-haired child, Hojo's son whose mother had died during the experiment. Hollander used to mock Hojo for her death. Probably he should have refrained from joking about that, he thought bitterly. Maybe then he would have been in a better position now.  
Hojo's boy had yet to display any of Cetra's abilities or knowledge, but nevertheless was considered a success. After Gast's flight from the Company, while Hollander was trying to prove himself by participating in the most crucial BioMed projects, Hojo had holed up in his lab for so long that Hollander had stopped thinking about him as a real threat. How foolish he had been! It turned out that Hojo had, in fact, been gathering evidence of Sephiroth's superior physical characteristics and regenerative capabilities, and soon enough he had presented them to President Shinra, persuading him to begin the SOLDIER project. To Hollander, the evidence seemed lacking and the idea insane, but the Old Man was completely taken by it.  
And so Hojo had ended up as a Chief of the whole Science Department, and Hollander a mere project leader.

...

To his further discontent, the elevators weren't working. The switch panel cover was removed, and a technician in a blue jumpsuit with a large Shin-Ra logo on the back was doing something with the wires. Opening the door that led to the stairway, Hollander was fuming so hard that he wouldn't be surprised if steam was coming out of his ears. Everything was against him. Everything. Even elevators.

At least, Hojo was in his office. On several occasions before, Hollander had had to look for him in the labs, battle simulators, holding cells and Shiva knows where else. Apparently, the man was _too busy_ to stay in one place.  
"So," Hollander asked upon entering the office, "what do you have for me?"  
Hojo looked up from the pile of papers he was digging through. "Nils," he said. "You certainly weren't in a hurry."  
"The elevators are broken," Hollander said through clenched teeth, his voice sounding apologetic despite all his efforts to keep it level.  
"Are they, really," Hojo muttered, flipping pages in one of the folders. "Ah, here it is."  
He handed the folder over to Hollander and added, "This is the project I want you to work on. The detailed information is on the mainframe, you were given full access to the files."  
Hollander took the papers, grimacing slightly. Knowing Hojo's opinion of him, it had to be some crap no one else wanted to deal with. "And what about my Project G?"  
Hojo stopped for a moment, sighed and adjusted his glasses, and then looked at Hollander. "Your project," he said, "was a _failure_. Be glad that is wasn't terminated, but merely suspended. Maybe it will be continued after the SOLDIER project shows first results."  
"And even if it was to be continued, it would be you who would work on it, right, _Simon_?"  
"Why?" Hojo seemed offended by Hollander's assumption. "I have other things to do besides working with your failed experiments, _Nils_."  
"Ah, thank you," Hollander said sarcastically. "For your trust and faith in me."

...

Though the mechanic was gone, the elevators were still not working. By the time Hollander got to his small office, he was panting and his knees were trembling. Maybe he should have listened to the doctor and stopped eating so much pizza and drinking so much apple juice, after all. He landed in his chair with a sigh of relief and began fanning himself with a folder. When a few minutes later his heart calmed down and stopped trying to jump out of his chest, he opened the folder and looked at the papers. While he was reading, his brows were rising higher and higher, until he let go of the folder and said aloud, "Are you kidding me, Hojo?"

For some time, he was sitting there, scowling, thinking about the things he had just read. In a way, it was even more insulting than all the unimportant stuff he was working on in the last months. But, on the other hand, it was a good opportunity to change his life to the better. Yes, the job was dirty, but Hollander never adhered to morality much.

The SOLDIER enhancement procedure was still under development, and in a lot of cases it caused death, or mental conditions, or severe mutations. Hollander was to work on the mutated survivors of the procedure - _Hojo's failures_ , - to see if they could be made into something useful. He could experiment on them as much as he wanted to, their consent didn't matter.  
Alongside with the data on mutated individuals, the files on the mainframe contained information on the experiments Hojo wanted to be performed on them. Hollander quickly looked through them; one, named "Cerberus", caught his eye. It was an experiment with so-called "stagnant Mako". There wasn't much detail on the substance, except for the place of its origin, - Hollander presumed, he had to examine it himself, - but the result of enhancing a human with it seemed very promising. Physical strength, regeneration, transformation... The only setback was the subject's "uncontrollability", whatever it meant. The regeneration capabilities were truly impressive, though the subject (labelled simply "C-I") still could not regenerate his limbs.  
Hollander rubbed his hands together, already planning his next steps. He might have been banned from the Jenova-related experiments, but it didn't mean he was useless.

This project was to become his second chance. "I'll be damned if I can't create a superior bio-weapons from Hojo's test subjects," He promised himself, opening a can of apple juice and beginning to draft a request for setting up a new secret lab for himself and his team. He already knew a perfect place for it.  
For a moment, he hesitated, thinking up a name for the project. It had to be something simple, but memorable. Something reflecting project's importance and secrecy...

His fingers began to dance over the keyboard, typing the name.

"Deepground."


End file.
